Happy Birthday Brody!!!!

Great time at the fish fry last night.  Good food, good company, makes for a great time!

My baby boy is 2 today.  I am shocked it's been two years since he came into this world.  It was such a rough 9 months getting him here.  5 months of bed rest, in and out of the hospital, many many trips to Peoria to the specialists, 3 days of a failed induced labor just to have to be cut open, have a c-section, and wake up to come to realize they are flying your precious baby to Peoria after all.

When Brody was born he came out healthy and full of spots.  Bad part of the whole deal was that within the 2 months before he was born, my entire family had contracted chicken pox.  My aunt Cara actually had the chicken pox during the 3 weeks that I was in the hospital waiting to have him.  So when he came out covered in spots, Dr. Lynch and Dr. Jones made the decision to ship him out.  Lung pox in an infant are deadly, so they weren't taking any chances.  I can remember this goopy gel crap in my eyes, and hearing Dena Schaller tell me to wake up and see my baby... she told me he was healthy, but he was getting flown to Peoria.  I was so confused and groggy.  Dr. Jones was standing there looking so stern and concerned.  It worried me.  I tried and tried to open my eyeballs.  They had vaseline stuff in them, and I just couldn't really focus.  I heard him cry.  They brouht him to me.  Bill was there.  He was talking to me and holding Brody up to me.  I was so scared.  I just kept kissing him.  I was still back in surgery at this point.  I was so foggy brained I just didn't quite get it.  I dozed back to sleep.  They rolled me down the hall back to my room.  When they woke me up to get me in my hospital bed and off the surgery cart I came to more.  I was so shocked.  EVERYONE was there.  Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunts, Cole.  They were passing Brody around so everyone could get to hold him before the Air Evac came to get him.  They only had 45 precious minutes with him.  I was in and out of sleep.  I was so toxic from the pre eclampsia that I had to be put completely OUT for the section.  I was so jumpy and my nerves were all out of whack, so the Dr's decided it was best to put me out so I didn't startle during surgery. 

I remember laying there and having troube opening up my eyes.  I peeked out and saw Grandpa Dennis holding Brody and Cole was sitting right there beside him.  I heard Dennis say to Cole "what's wrong, buddy?" and Cole says to him "I don't want them to take my brother away, and my mom is so sick she can't even open up her eyeballs" he started crying.  My heart just melted.  Poor kid just didn't get it.  He was so upset.  I forced myself to open my eyeballs and keep them open from then on until they left.  OSF team got there and took Brody in the incubator to the helicopter.  Cole got taken outside to watch Brody fly away, then he brought in the camera to show me all the pictures he and Grandpa Dennis took, he also found me a pet rock from out in the parking lot to put with our pet rock collection!  I still have this rock, it's precious to me! He just didn't want them to take away his new brother.  Poor kid. 

I slept for a coupe hours and finally got myself to sit up by noon.  Brody was born at 9:17 a.m. and here it was noon and I was sitting with my legs dangling over the bed.  By 2 I was up and in the recliner.  Carla Rodeffer and Grandma Jean stayed with me for HOURS.  Mom was in Peoria with Brody and Bill went to the farm to finish up stuff so he could get me to Peoria the second they released me.  I was up walking by 4 that day.  I made it to the ob doors and back.  By Dr Jones 9 p.m. visit I was begging for my stockings to be removed and begging for my catheter to be removed.  He let me take off the stockings, but made me keep the cath in till morning. 

Morning came and I had made mysef get up and walk every two hours at least.  Bless Bill's heart, he was there holding me up every time I stood.  He walked with me all night long.  I begged Dr Jones to take out my cath first thing that morning.  He reluctantly agreed.  He usually likes to keep them in two days.  I got that out and used the potty for the first time by myself and was begging Dr Jones to release me to Peoria.  He just shook his head.  By 9 that night we had discovered that if Brody was going to be released before the  next weekend we had to have MY blood at Peoria to be tested BEFORE 9 a.m the next day.  The lab only does this one test on thursdays and here it was Sunday and if we had my blood there by 9 a.m. Monday morning they would run that test especially for us.  that test was a herpes test on me.  If I didn't go get this test done then they wouldn't release him to us.  They still didn't have an answer to why he broke out in all those spots.  By the end of Sunday most of the spots were gone.  Dr's up there we baffled, but couldn't release him until they ruled out all the possibilities of deadly spots that could kill him.  Herpes virus was the last one.  The specialist Dr told me they ran over 63 cultures on him and all sorts of labs and nothing showed up.  I didn't want my baby in Peoria clear to Thursday, so I called Dr Jones at home and BEGGED him at 9 p.m. to discharge me.  He came in and talked to me and he really didn't want to let me go.  He kept saying NO.  I was bawling and crying and so upset.  Hormonal nut job!  Finaly I used my last card with him... his wife was pregnant and due in a few weeks so I played my trump card and said "you're telling me if this was you wife, and if she's doing this good getting around and with pain control, and she was so far from her baby, you wouldn't want or let her go?"  he gave me a look and smiled and shook his head... I knew I had him!  He finally agreed that I could go at 5 a.m. not a minute sooner, but he PROMISED to have my lab drawn, and all my paperwork ready for me to walk out the doors at 5 a.m.  I was soooo EXCITED to see and meet my baby.  You got to realize I only got to see him with jelly filled eyeballs, blurry and a few camera phone pics from my mom at Peoria.  Bill went home to get the van and he loaded up all my crap that had accumulated from the last 3 weeks in the hospital.  He also went to see Cole and tell him the good news his brother was coming home soon, hopefully... unless I had herpes and didn't know about it!  Ha ha ha.

5 a.m. Bill and I were on the road to Peoria.  We ran into some traffic, had to make LOTS of stops to get out and walk.  Dr Jones didn't want me making that trip, but I begged and begged and he laid down LOTS of RULES for me.  He made Bill promise to follow them too.  I had to walk for 10 minutes every half hour, to prevent blood clots while traveling.  It was a 3 hour drive but it was so worth it when I finally got to snugge my baby in my arms.  I just scooped him up and he KNEW me!!! 

The hospital ran my blood which came out negative for Herpes, and all the other things they had to check for.  Thank goodness.  We had to watch three films before the would let us out.  One was about infant care, shaken baby, and car seat safety.  By 5 p.m. we were on our way home!  We still had to stop a lot and stop to feed Brody a time or two, but we were going HOME.  Realize this... I hadn't been HOME in a MONTH!  I was soooo HOMESICK!

We pulled in and Mom & Cole were there to greet us.  Cole was BEAMING!!!  Dennis grilled us some steaks we had a nice meal.  Keith, Bev, Joe, Jason, Mom, Dennis all stopped out to see us.  It was great to be HOME. 

I can't believe it's been TWO years.  It was rough getting him home,but he's ours and we love him to pieces.  Happy Birthday Brody Charles.